The Nature and Its Nurture !

Society is one topic that never adheres from amusing you. The vast number of individuals, the instincts that each of them present, the way they speak, walk, dress etc., everything says something or the other about their psychologies and quite interestingly, this aspect is more random than you can ever estimate.    Nature and nurture are just two concepts that seem to be quite intimately connected, yet they are not. Nature is just natural. Nurture, on the other hand, is ‘natural’ artificiality. [I will explain what I mean by this term a while later but first, let’s clarify nature.] According to a dictionary, nature is defined as- “the natural world; consisting of all things unaffected by predating human technology, production and design.” Pretty simple a definition, all it suggests is that there are certain elements in the society or the universe (if viewed from a larger perspective) that are imminent, that are obvious, that are a part of our creation and those that exist, irrespective of our existence. What we mean by ‘elements of nature’ is just this and no matter how much we read or write about it, try to mould and change it, we just cannot end in success.

[A point to be noted here is that by nature we may consider two separate viewpoints i.e. one that is a part of this universe as defined moments ago, the other being our composure of situations, our instincts and reactions, often referred to as ‘attitude’. Now attitude is a different story altogether but if I shorten my descriptions we will observe that attitude is not really natural but a vague result of nurture. So we may not consider the other definition of nature here in the description of nature.]

Nurture is a separate concept [as told earlier] but it can be derived from nature. Let’s put is this way- Nature is actually Nurtured and nurture leads us to our attitude.
By this statement, all I’m trying to convey is that nurture is something that we don’t inherit, something that’s not obvious but very random.

The human mind is built in such a way that right from childhood, we learn to think and nurture topics on our own. Some conceptions are created by our elders, some are that we discover on our own and some are just accepted by us the way they are. All these conceptions fall under Nurture.

Let us get one thing clear. The concept of nurture is interwoven with nature but unlike nature, nurtured articles, conceptions etc. exist because we make them existent in the way we choose. Now, coming to the question of importance, I would be biased towards nurture a bit more than nature. I believe that when we have plural options, we always have an alternative to our choice. This is the reason of the bias. Nurture provides us with a series of options we can choose from even when we have chosen one. Let us consider a set of individuals who’ve chosen the wrong concepts for an element. Nurture provides this set of individuals a second chance and assuming that they take up the initiative of choosing the better option, the society can well be a better place….. I’m sure of it…

Thanks,

Vishal Ghosh 

The Social Changes

The Evolution of Sociological Perspectives

[The idea of this article was launched at my sociology classes at the college. It was only my second day at the class and the atmosphere was worth mentioning. (Hadn’t it been an article on a subject in society, I would have had it mentioned.) One of my classmates introduced herself and notified that her purpose of taking up Sociology beside Biological Sciences was to furnish her knowledge on evolution of society and consequently that of human beings in the brief history of time. The teacher had a beautiful response to the introduction and that is what attracted my attention. Let us go ahead.]

“No doubt what you just said was interesting that you are trying to find a link between the evolution of human beings and the evolution of society, but I would like to make a small correction to the entire class- We have used the word Primitive for the society that was existent before us but have we the necessary information to judge that?? Can we be judgemental about whether our ancestors were primitive, that their society was worse off than what it is today? No, we cannot. It is because of the fact that the way of expression was not right. The society has changed, but whether it has evolved or not, we cannot say because we are walking in our shoes, not on theirs. “– was the teacher’s response and I, on my part, definitely appreciate it. 

The idea is very precise and noteworthy. Before we take to criticism, we must have our subject experienced at least once. Similarly, we cannot brand our ancestral society as bad or good because we don’t have most of the idea of how it worked (excepting the historical references). I have titled this article as THE EVOLUTION OF … but I admit, it was unfair on my part to do so. But let me bring to account why I completed the title using ‘SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES’ rather than just ‘SOCIETY’. The society has just changed, not really evolved. The mind-set and the approach is what matters and these are what that changed.

                The human race has evolved quite a bit from yesterday-physically, mentally, technologically and psychologically. [Mentality and psychology are taken as two different things]. The origin of these changes is yet unknown to us, how it happened, where it happened, why it happened and so on- we do not know either of these answers with utmost perfection. What we can say about it is that the society has Changed not really evolved. The instincts have remained the same, just that they have become more furnished.

                Have we stepped into and walked on their shoes??? Do we actually know how the society worked at that time?? Do we have the adequate information so as to brand them as underdeveloped or PRIMITIVE? Think deeply on the first question that has been raised. The answer should be a negative. Why is it so?? The answer is simple and pretty reasonable. It is because they lived in a world we did not live in and howsoever historians try to figure out , we will be nowhere close to what and how they have had experienced. They used a different pair of shoes than what we us today-We won’t fit into them. But mere changing of shoe doesn’t depict evolution. Does it? No is what I suppose. We know the elements of their society but we are unaware of what ideals were followed at that time, what education was provide to youngsters, and so on. The engravings on stones or rocks tell us quite a lot but not all that’s required to prove the hypothesis that we have evolved, not just changed. We cannot justify ourselves or criticize them till we find out what their perspectives were. 

                Now if I take a different approach to the topic then it would be something like this- There were murders at the time. Yes? Yes. They killed the general public to satisfy their needs or attain vengeance. An evolved society would have this genre of people removed but has it been possible. Are there no murderers now? There are, and the number has even increased. The quality of murder has enhanced. Its economic murders now beside bloodshed. Almost all the developing countries are experiencing some monetary blunders or market crashes. Isn’t that murder? Not on flesh, that’s right but economy is equally important. All I’m trying to capture in this paragraph is that the human instincts, the basic human nature, the basic emotions have remained quite the same. It’s the taste of music that has changed. It’s the style of conquering that has changed. It’s only the outlook that has changed, perspectives that just changed, not EVOLVED.